Petty leads No. 4 Baylor to 63-34 win over Texas Tech

What is most impressive to Bears coach Art Briles is how his team, without several key offensive players, responded after quickly facing its first double-digit deficit of the season.

Baylor is still undefeated, with a chance to move into the top four of the BCS standings, after Bryce Petty again accounted for five touchdowns in a 63-34 victory Saturday night over Texas Tech.

“When you’re down 14-0, you’re down 20-7, and then you withstand that surge against a good team and come back and finish the way we finished as a team, and to me, that’s impressive,” Briles said. “That shows you have a tough football team, a tough-minded football team that’s mature and believes in what’s happening inside the locker room.”

Petty threw three TD passes and ran for two scores for the second game in a row. His 31-yard pass to Antwan Goodley for a 31-yard score with 4 seconds in the first quarter made it 21-20, putting Baylor (9-0, 6-0 Big 12) ahead to stay. Goodley’s Big 12-best 11th TD catch came immediately after K.J. Morton intercepted a pass.

The Bears stretched their school-record winning streak to 13 games. They are the outright Big 12 leader after No. 23 Texas absorbed its first conference loss earlier in the day, and are one of six undefeated FBS teams.

“Tonight showed us a lot. We’re a resilient team,” said Petty, who was 17-of-31 passing for 335 yards. “I think there’s a lot of talent involved, but we have a lot of guys that work hard. And that’s what you’ve got to have. It’s more than just talent. You’ve got to have those guys that are going to push through a little adversity.”

Texas Tech (7-4, 4-4), which scored touchdowns on its first three drives and led 14-0 only 8 minutes into the game, lost its fourth straight since a 7-0 start for first-year coach Kliff Kingsbury.

“We knew that they were going to score. They scored on everybody,” Kingsbury said. “It’s a great offense, it really is. … The quarterback is really good and receivers everywhere. We knew they’d score. We just had to limit it and limit our mistakes, and we didn’t do that.”

Kingsbury was the starting quarterback at Texas Tech when Briles was an assistant coach there from 2000-02.

Baylor played its first game since Briles this week got a new 10-year contract through the 2023 season. The coach is in his sixth season with the Bears, who had 12 consecutive losing seasons since the inception of the Big 12 when he arrived.

Next week, the Bears play at No. 12 Oklahoma State (9-1, 6-1), which won 38-13 at Texas hours earlier.

Baylor was fifth in the BCS standings last week, behind Stanford — which lost for the second time this season, 20-17 to Southern California on Saturday night.

The Bears played without their top two running backs, Big 12 rushing leader Lache Seastrunk (groin) and Glasco Martin (knee), and 103-yard-a-game receiver Tevin Reese. All got banged up in the Bears’ 41-12 win over Oklahoma nine nights earlier, Reese the most serious with a dislocated right wrist that required surgery and will force him to miss at least the rest of the regular season.

And they still surpassed their FBS-best scoring average of 61 points that was already on pace to break a major college scoring record. They had 675 total yards, only 11 below their nation’s best average.

Shock Linwood, effectively the Bears’ third-string running back, ran 29 times for 187 yards and a touchdown while Devin Chafin, another redshirt freshman, had 11 carries for 100 yards and two TDs. Levi Norwood had TD catches of 40 and 58 yards, and also returned a punt 58 yards for a score that cut the gap to 20-14.

Linwood had 182 yards after coming in against Oklahoma and was the Big 12 player of the week.

“I believe it gave me confidence for me to go out there and perform like I did,” Linwood said.

Baker Mayfield, Tech’s starting quarterback for the first time since the fifth game, completed 28 of 51 passes for 314 yards and four touchdowns. His only pick came when he threw a pass right into the chest of the leaping Morton.

Bears kicker Aaron Jones became the NCAA career leader for extra points with nine more, pushing his career mark to 260. The previous record was the 253 by Art Carmody of Louisville from 2004-07.

Standout tight end Jace Amaro had touchdown catches on the Red Raiders’ first two drives. There was a 6-yard TD on a halfback pass from Kenny Williams on the 15th play of a game-opening 75-yard drive before Amaro got wide open for a 20-yard score from Mayfield the next time they had the ball.

Amaro took a crushing hit from Ahmad Dixon while holding on for an 18-yard catch to the 4, two plays before Mayfield’s 3-yard TD to Jakeem Grant with 4:28 left in the first half got the Red Raiders within 28-27.